Summer Vacation 2026: Week 4 - Camps and more camps

I just finished the busiest three weeks of the whole summer. And now I'm 3 weeks behind on this blog. So it's time to get cracking on catching up. 

The first week of the catch up will be from Monday June 15 to Sunday June 21st. This week was so busy. The kids had CSI camps the first half of the week and Girls Camp the second half of the week. And Wednesday June 17th was somehow the nexus of time and space. EVERYTHING seemed to be scheduled for June 17th. Oh and it was show week for Jump company.

So let's talk about it. 

Monday June 15 was the start date for two CSI camps. Charlotte was doing the Agriculture Academy. It started at 8:30. I drove her to the Evergreen building and got her all checked in.  This was her first year doing this camp. They had sent out a schedule a few days earlier and it had a lot of cool things on it so she was really excited. 

Lydia had followed me in her van. She had Derrick and Veronica with her. So when I was done checking Charlotte into her camp she followed me over to the Applied Technology and Innovation building. I took Lydia, Derrick, and Veronica into the building and got them all checked in. 

They were all their for Tech and Trades Camp. We love this camp. Like the Ag camp it was only $50 and I was able to get scholarships for each of the kids. So it was free. Yay. 

This was Lydia's 4th year doing this camp. She was excited to show off her welding skills. 

It was technically Derrick's second year doing the camp, but last year didn't really count. He'd only lasted an hour last year. But he'd been the one to bring up the idea of trying again. And the leaders were willing to let him try again. He's grown up a lot in the last year so I was fairly confident he would do okay, but I still kept my phone close all day just in case. 

This was Veronica's first year. She was so happy to finally be able to do the camp. 

Tech and Trade camp didn't start until 9:00 and we were there about 8:35 so the kids were some of the first to get there. They were just fine with me leaving. So I went to work. I spent a lot of time at work because I didn't have to feel bad that the kids were home while I was working. 

I don't remember what I did when I got home. Maybe worked on writing something. Maybe took a nap. Who knows? It was three weeks ago. 

Brandon came home before the kids were even done with the camp. At 4:30 they drove up in the silver van. They were all so excited to tell us about their days. 

Charlotte had spent the morning at the Ropes Course doing some fun team building activities. In the afternoon they'd gone to a farm and learned about things. They did some things with sprinkler pivots. She said that part felt a little child labor-y, but other than that it was fine. 

She had squishies in the shape of a cow and a potatoe.

The Tech and Trade kids had a blast too. They'd started the morning with legos in the shape of tractors. 

Then they'd gone to see real tractors and had been able to sit in the cab of a huge one. 

In the afternoon they did wood work and made some sort of box with a gam on it's lid. Here's Veronica's. 

Lydia's (It's pine trees and sky.)

And Derrick's. 


Derrick had a great time! He'd had a wonderful day and hadn't been overwhelmed at all. It helped that he was in the same group as Lydia and Veronica all day. 

Lydia told us funny stories about how she was in a silly mood and was spraying Veronica with air from an air compressor. 

My favorite story was when the kids told me they all sat together at lunch. They all ate at the student cafeteria. Charlotte's group was supposed to eat separate from the other camp, but Charlotte was like, "They know where to find me."  And went to eat in with her siblings. I can just picture all 4 of them having a fun time together at lunch. It makes me so happy that they are all such good friends. 

Our evening was spent getting the girls' stuff together for girls camp. We camp a lot so in theory this should have been easy, but for some reason it felt super hard. For one thing we had to label EVERYTHING. So where normally I'd be like, "okay let's pack the lanterns" and chuck them into a box, this time I had to find tape and make a little label the lanterns with our name.  

It was also hard because there was such a lag time before camp actually started. Camp officially started on Wednesday. We would drop stuff off at the Young Women's president's house on Tuesday night. This was Monday night. But Charlotte and Lydia weren't going to camp until Charlotte finished Ag camp on Thursday. So it was hard to pack for something that wasn't happening for a few days. 

Another complication was that any food had to be kept out of the tents. And all the secret sister gifts we'd bought were food things. I ended up just putting all the secret sister stuff in it's own backpack. I texted a picture of it to my friend's Amanda and Kori who were going to camp. Veronica was going to be responsible for giving out the secret sister gifts to Charlotte and Lydia's people on the first day but she hadn't really been paying close attention when I was explaining that everything was in the backpack. So I made sure that Amanda and Kori knew where to find the things. 

I think all of us were near melt downs by the time everything was gathered, labeled, and packed. 

On Tuesday Charlotte drove herself to camp so she could be there at 8:30. She had all of her stuff packed for water activities. They were going Kayaking on the Snake River at Centennial Park and then doing something Ag related in the afternoon. 

A little before 9:00 I drove the rest of the kids to their camp and dropped them off. Then I went out to Filer to work on stuff for Jump Company. I was trying to stay on top of the books ahead of all the transactions I knew would happen that weekend. 

When I was done there I went to Walmart and bought some last minute things the girls needed for camp. Veronica was supposed to bring a sack lunch on Wednesday so I made sure to get some things for that. I also brought a treat for the girls to have all week. 

Later in the day I had admin meeting at Aspen Grove and then stayed and did some work. 

Then it was back home and I think I took a nap. 

All the kids came home together at 4:30. They had had another great day. The Tech and Trade kids had all done welding. This was their FAVORITE unit. And yes, Lydia was able to show off her skills. 

I always end up with yard art after this unit. This year they made flowers. Here's Lydia's.  

Veronica's. 

And Derrick's. He'd loved welding. He's been asking me if he could go back and weld some more. 

Here are the flowers in my front yard. 

They kids also made things out of scrap metal. Lydia made a sword. 

And so did Veronica. 

Veronica also made this thing on a handle. 

Derrick made something crazy and put his initials on it. 

That evening Brandon helped get all the stuff dropped off at Amanda's house. I would have gone, but it was the first show night for Jump Company and I felt it was important to be there early that night. 

This was Jump Company's big summer show. They did Prince of Egypt this year. It was directed by my friend Ivan and his best friend Tyler was the music director. 

Normally this show is held at the Roper Auditorium, which is the auditorium for Twin Falls High School. But they wanted to charge Jump triple what they had in other years AND they weren't going to give them much access to classrooms for cast members to get ready in. 

So Jump decided to do their show at the Jerome  High School Auditorium. They got a much better deal and had access to lots of classrooms. The only downside was the 20 or so minute drive out to Jerome from Twin Falls. 

I arrived around 6:30 and introduced myself to a lady named Kristy who was in charge of the ticket sales. I also introduced myself to the people selling things at the concessions stand. 

When the show started I counted down the till for tickets. I left money for them to use as a bank the next night and I took the rest to deposit in the bank. Then I hung around until after intermission so I could do the same thing with the concessions cash. 

The way things used to be done was that they would just let the money accumulate and take it all to the bank when all the shows were over. But that set off so many alarm bells in my head. I've managed cash for too many years to allow that to happen on my watch. My policy was that extra cash needed to be taken to the bank every night. And I was willing to do the work to make that happen. 

While I was hanging around waiting for intermission I tried taking a picture of my most recent hive outbreak. This one at least had an explanation. I'd been nervous about this first night for managing cash and I was pretty certain that was why I was having a breakout. It's a little hard to see because my vitiligo is also there, but there's a red patch on my forearm. That's the hive. I also had one on my back and other on my leg. 

But everything went fine and so there was really no need for nerves or hives. 

Wednesday was a CRAZY day. It seems like everyone looked at their calendar and said, "Let's schedule something that day."

It started at 6:00 with waking up Derrick to work at Tubb's Berry Farm. Charlotte and Lydia said they would rather do their CSI camps that morning so they decided not to do Tubbs Berry Farm. But Derrick was very committed to earning money so he wanted to do the farm. He was feeling kind of done with the camp so he told me he didn't want to go to the camp, just the farm. 

So I got him up at 6:00 and took him out to the farm by 7:00. I came back home and packed lunches for the girls. Just when I was feeling on top of things Derrick called me. He was not having a good time and wanted to come home. honestly, I'd kind of expected that. He'd hardly ate anything for breakfast and hadn't talked much. He'd done so much over the last two days at camp. He didn't have anything left for the farm. 

So I hurried to wake Lydia and Veronica up and told them to be ready when I got back. Thankfully Charlotte was already planning to drive herself so I didn't worry about her. I drove back to the farm and picked up Derrick. Then I drove him home. 

He'd broken his plastic bottom retainer a few days earlier and when I'd called about it we'd been scheduled for an appointment that morning around 10:30. (I told you, anything that could be scheduled this day was scheduled this day.) But now that he was home from the farm early I wondered if I could get him into the orthodontist earlier. So I called them and they said they had an opening at 9:15. 

So we all drove together. We dropped Lydia and Veronica off at CSI for camp and then we drove over to the Orthodontist. 

When Derrick got his braces off he was supposed to get a permanent metal retainer put on the back of his bottom teeth. But he's gums had been really swollen. So they opted to just have him wear the plastic retainer for a few weeks and then they'd put the permanent one on later. Later was supposed to be the middle of July, but I figured we might as well do it now since he'd broken the plastic one. 

So the orthodontist looked at his teeth and agreed. The tech put the metal retainer on his teeth and then did the 3D scan to create an image of his teeth. They 3D printed another mold of his teeth and then used those to make another plastic retainer. That retainer was done later in the day and Brandon was able to pick it up on his way home from work. 

(Fun fact: The office is in kind of a dead end area of the office complex. No one drives by it. So if you can't pick up retainers until after they are closed they just tape the retainers to the window by the door and you can come pick them up after hours.)

Oh and random story. When we were in the waiting room another mom came in with her son. I recognized her immediately. I was like, "Oh we don't know each other, but I know you because of theatre."  Her name is Amanda and she was in Hello Girls. I told her I was a huge fan. And yes, I will make it awkward, but I want people to know they are AMAZING. 

When Derrick's appointment was over I took him home. Then I drove back to CSI and picked up Veronica. They had been doing welding that morning. Lydia would stay for the CnC unit that afternoon. 

The girls were meeting at the church at 11:30 and I'd been so worried we be late, but we actually were some of the first people there. WHEW!

All the girls gathered and someone said a quick prayer. And then they all got assigned to cars and they were off. 

I'd packed Veronica's lunch and had told her about it, but once again she hadn't been paying very close attention to what I was talking about. But later in the day she sent me a text saying, "Mom I saw my lunch and I owe you. Thank you you have saved my life."

As soon as Veronica was off I got in my car and drove to work. We were having a pretty important team meeting at 12:00. This was another thing that I'd told people I might be late. But again I made it on time. Whew!

The meeting was pretty boring content-wise, so I won't tell you about that. But there was something notable - or rather someone notable. Veronica's therapist is joining my office!!!  I've known this was a possibility for a while, but I had to keep it quiet. But now it was official and Rachel came to the meeting to say hi to everyone. 

I'm really excited to have Rachel as part of the team because she'd been really good with Veronica for the past 3.5 years. But I'm not sure if Veronica is going to continue seeing her now that she is my co-worker. So that's kind of a bummer. But honestly, I've felt like Veronica is done with therapy for good this time so maybe this is the thing that makes it permanent. 

I'd planned to stay at work after the team meeting, but by that point I'd worked so much that week and lived like 10 lives that morning so I was like, "Nope!" And just went home. 

I have no memory of what I did that afternoon. Probably just wandered around muttering "I did it" "I did it."

Charlotte and Lydia came home from camp that afternoon. Charlotte had spent part of the day at the livestock auction place in Twin Falls. She said it was really cool and wants to go back. 

That evening Brandon and Derrick went to young mens. They did a "Spartan Race" on the fitness trail at CSI. 

I was back in Jerome for Jump. When I got there I saw the Priest Quorum from my ward getting out of their cars. They were there to support Covey. I'm not sure why the Teachers didn't come to support Finn N. 

I had fun talking with Kristy at tickets again. There were new parents at concessions and I talked with them. One of them was the mom of my friend Sara. Her daughter Emily was in the show. I've been following Emily's progress every since she was the little girl who said, "Tommy djilis did it!" In Music Man."

At intermission my friend Tim came out of the auditorium. He came over to me and said, "What's up nerd?"  And then we kind of both had a moment where we were both thinking, "What did you just say? Are we at that level of friendship? Sure why not?" It was kind of funny. 

Two days later on June 19th I was voted in as the Chair for the Theatre Gala of the Magic Valley and Tim was voted Vice Chair. We already kind of knew it was coming, but it wasn't official yet on Wednesday. We did take some time to talk about the location. We are holding the Gala at this same auditorium. We'd been told we couldn't have food or drink. So we both looked at the concession table and said, "So we apparently CAN have food here." 

Thursday was a simple day compared to the rest of the week. Tech and Trades camp was over, but Ag camp still had one more day. Charlotte drove herself there and back. They went to a fish hachery and a dairy farm. She was able to hold baby cows! Totally worth missing the first day and night of girls camp. 

I spent the morning watering my garden really well. Then I went to work. I was feeling really behind, but I kept telling myself "that's why you are here for 4 hours today. So you can catch up."  And I did get caught up. 

When Charlotte came home I took a picture of all the certificates the kids had earned from their camps. It was another successful year. 

I was planning to drive the girls up to camp that night. Word had got out that I was going and so a few people had been bringing things over to my house for me to take up to camp. There were forgotten water bottles, phone chargers, and Kori's husband sent me with flowers for Kori's birthday the next day. 

Around 5:00 we started driving. The camp was Camp Cumorah near Idaho Falls. It was about a 3 hour drive. The girls and I talked the whole way. They ate the lunches I'd packed for them, but we also stopped for dinner at a McDonalds. We would be showing up after dinner at camp and I wanted to make sure Lydia ate something. 

Lydia was NOT looking forward to camp. She was only going because Charlotte was going. She's still traumatized from her second year of girls camp that had some major planning issues. She also hates change. She did not like that this year was a stake camp at a new location. So she was pretty hesitant about the whole thing. But she went. 

We arrived at camp when everyone was at a devotional at an amphitheater in the forest.  They place was kind of eerily empty. Veronica saw me drive by so she told Amanda. And Amanda came to meet us and told us we could drive the car up to the campsite and unload everything. 

The camp is owned by the church. It had a lot of vibes that reminded me of Oakcrest in Utah. But this place just had tent pads instead of cabins. 

Here's the view of the pond. There was a rope swing that the girls would end up loving. Lydia and Veronica did it like a million times. Kori told me that every time Veronica was getting ready to go she'd say, "I'm so nervous."  Kori was like, "why, you've already done it a million times?"

Here's the road up to the tent areas. 

I got the girls situated and then I drove them down the lodge area where all the other girls were gathering. Veronica was there. This is the second year in a row where I've dropped the twins off after Veronica's already been at camp. I love seeing how happy she is at camp. 

As I drove away all the girls were getting ready for some sort of group picture. (Lydia was spiraling because they were going to do a tic-tok dance and she thought that was dumb.)

I had a three hour drive ahead of me. But driving around southern Idaho in the summer is a pretty great way to spend an evening. I had a lovely time driving back. First I listened to a podcast, but I switched to the radio for the last hour or so. 

I got home around 11:30. It had been a great evening. 

Meanwhile, the president of Jump Company was missing me. Annie texted me the next day and said she didn't get home until 11:45 and didn't even have a change to count the money until the next day. That made me feel like my little job of counting down the tickets and concessions cash every night was pretty important. 

Friday was the first full day that all the girls were at camp. It was also the only full day they'd all be at camp. Last year I'd painted the whole kitchen while they were gone, this year I barely had a day. 

I went to work in the morning. 

When I got home I asked Derrick to help me wrap Brandon's Father's Day presents. We only had Christmas wrapping paper and so we did something I've wanted to do for a while. We drove to Hobby Lobby and bought non-Christmas wrapping paper.

Hobby Lobby is attached to the mall so we walked down to see Lydia's painting in the Art and Soul display. We'd come to see it as a group the previous Friday, but I'd left my phone at home and didn't get a picture that time. 

We also went to see the big flag, "The Patriot."  This flag is hung over the canyon for the anniversary of 9/11 every year. This year it would be hung for the 250 celebration. 

Here's Derrick with the display about 9/11.

We also went to the rock store and bought silly flavored sodas to have a cousin camp the next week. 

After we were done wrapping Brandon's present we went to the pool for a little while. And then we came home and  . . . I don't remember . . . let's say we watched a movie together. 

That night Brandon and I had been planning to watch Prince of Egypt. But with the drive out to Jerome it would mean that Derrick would be home alone for 4 hours. And I just wasn't comfortable with that. So Brandon stayed home with Derrick. They went grocery shopping for my part of the cousin camp food. I went to Jerome to count the money. 

I brought the book I'd been reading for a few weeks. It was called "What to Make of a Life" by Jim Collins. 

He wrote Good to Great which is one of my favorite books. Good to Great had ended with this paragraph:

"When all these pieces come together, not only does you work move toward greatness, but so does your life. For in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you've had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent and that it mattered."

Jim Collins never came out and said that "What to Make of a Life" was following up on these final lines from Good to Great - but many times while I was reading I was like, "This reminds me of the end of Good to Great."

I've loved What to Make of a Life quite a bit, but on this day it became especially meaningful. This was the day I'd been officially voted in as the chair for the Theatre Gala of the Magic Valley and I was feeling really inadequate. I'd seen an advertisement for a leadership class at CSI and I was seriously considering taking it in order to beef up my leadership skills.  

But then I read a section on leadership in What to Make of a Life. 

One part said, "Leadership effectiveness flows not from following the leadership recipes of other, or in having something we might call a "leadership personality." There cannot possibly be a universal recipe for leadership, for the simple reason that we are all encoded differently. The key is to trust you own leadership encodings, not to follow someone else's. If someone offers you a leadership recipe based on what worked for them, remember that it worked for them because it reflected their encodings. which likely are not like yours."

I read that and realized I didn't need to take a leadership class. I was ready for this role. 

He also said, "Leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what must be done. Leadership is not personality. Leadership is not charisma, Leadership is not power. Leadership is not giving orders. Leadership has nothing to do with rank or title or any of that. True leadership only exists if people follow when they would otherwise have the freedom not to follow." 

I'm still scared to be the chair for TGMV, but I'm also willing to take on the challenge. I think I can get people to want to do what must be done. 

Saturday was the day the girls came home from camp. In the morning I watered my garden really well. I took Brandon around and showed him all the things that MUST be watered while I was gone the next week and what could survive if he didn't have time to water everything. 

I went to a clothing swap that was happening down town and got a few cute things. 

Around 1:30 I went to Amanda's to be there when the girls arrived. They were soon there. We helped get our stuff out of the trailer and then we left. 

The girls told me all the fun stuff they did. Lydia admitted it had been fun after all.

The girls started doing their laundry and I started packing the car for cousin camp. It wouldn't start until Monday, but I literally didn't have time to do it any other time. 

We had Orange Chicken for dinner. The girls were so happy about that. They hadn't liked the camp food very much. 

That evening Brandon and I went to Jerome to watch Prince of Egypt. We drove in his car because mine was packed so tightly I couldn't even see out the back. 

We sat with our friends Bryan and Candice who were on the second row. Their daughter Kylie was in the show as a Hebrew. Finn N was also a Hebrew. His brother Covey was a Egyptian priest. Finn is one of my favorite kids to watch on stage. He just GLOWS!

The whole show was incredible. Jump summer shows are always great - we knew it would be good. But it was just so wonderful from the beginning to the end.

The stage version has a lot more songs than the movie version. You should go listen to the soundtrack here. All the singers did so well. 

There were also featured dancers that came out to be the sand, water, and the burning bush. The dancers wore tan outfits. They carried translucent flags that could be turned different colors with the lighting. 

There was an extended chorus of singers that would come out to fill out some of the scenes like the opening number and crossing the red sea. 

I had fun recognizing the actors from other shows. Seti had been the lead in Crazy for You and had been in Hello Girls. His wife had been Amy in Little Women. Moses's mother was Sophie from Momma Mia. Moses had been the Aladdin understudy. Miriam was played by two sisters who had both been in Cinderella with me. Young Miriam was Elinor, and Older Miriam was Lydia. 

I also recognized some of the costumes and props. It was fun to see things that had just been on receipts from Amazon show up on stage. 

Ivan and his assistant director Olivia were sitting right in front of us. I'd given Ivan a hug before the show. At intermission I told him congratulations and gave him another hug. He'd done an amazing job. 

As always I was just blown away by the talent that is in this valley. I love that I can apply my accounting talents to help support this organization. 

I don't have many pictures but here's the one I took of part of the set. That sarcophagus was 3D printed and then covered with gold paint. The company that 3D printed it was given a silver sponsorship. 

When the show was over Brandon and I congratulated everyone. We waited around for someone to bring me the cash box. While we we waiting we looked at the Jump Company memorabilia on display in the lobby. I was flipping through a scrap book with pictures from past productions. I came across these letters to the editor that were published in 1995. It was kind of nice to see there was theatre drama happening 30 years ago too. 

I thought it was funny that someone had kept these all these years. 

I got the cash boxes and took them home with me. I counted everything down at home and then took the money to the bank and put it in the night deposit box. 

Sunday would have been a nice day to rest, but I was feeling overwhelmed by how much needed to happen for the Jump Bookkeeping. I was going to be camping the next week. I wanted to make sure that as much was done as possible. 

So I went out to Filer and took care of a bunch of stuff for about 2 hours. I could have done even more, but a lot of transactions hadn't processed through the bank yet. Friday had been the Juneteenth and the bank was closed. So none of the Square transactions after Thursday were finalized.

But I did make sure that some reimbursement payments were sent to people. I was glad they didn't have to wait for me to come back from camp before getting reimbursed. 

I came home and got ready for church. (I'm really going to miss 1:30 church next year.) It was Father's Day. Some people wore their blue ties from last year. We have an autistic man named Jordan. He was wearing his tie. His mom told me that she couldn't remember where the tie came from. He told her, "Sister Illguth gave it to me."  Which is true, but I had no idea that he even knew my name. I was touched he remembered.  

I think we watched a movie that night, but I don't remember. 

And that finishes out the week. Can you see why I got behind. This was such a busy week. It feels good to have finally written about it all. 

Thanks for reading.